September 11, 1952--Thursday Night--Panther Junction, Big Bend National Park, Texas

Dear Francys,

I have a letter half-written to you but it is so garbled I'm going to start over. I started it yesterday and went to sleep over it late last night, so it doesn't make sense. I'm having a wonderful time; I've become reconciled to the mountains. They look more beautiful each day. When the folks point out Alsate, the Apache chief who haunts the Chisos, or saddles or lions chasing mice, I examine all the peaks in sight, and sometimes I can even locate the figure they are talking about.

But let me tell you what's happened to me since I left you in California. In El Paso we were delayed two-and-a-half hours, causing us to arrive in Marathon at 6:00 A.M. All that night I hadn't slept a wink. When I crept off the train, the only passenger for Marathon, nobody was stirring except a fellow loading freight. I guess he could see I was frozen from fright and the train's air-conditioning so he invited me into the office where it was considerably warmer. He told me I could go out to the park with the postman. After we chatted a while he invited me to go across the ditch with him--he called it an arroyo--for a cup of coffee. Afterwards, his promise to see that the postman didn't leave for the park without me left me free to go to the grocery store he told me about.

The grocer, Willie, was very helpful too. He said the bus runs from Marathon to the park only on Friday--one trip a week. While I shopped, Willie stationed his hired help at the store door to watch the post office so the postman wouldn't escape. Then he put my groceries in a box and sent it over to the post office. When I returned to the depot the young man there had already sent my baggage to the post office too so I was ready to go.

At nine o'clock I squeezed into a loaded-down vehicle with the postman, his wife, and their little bug-eyed dog. As we sped along I could look at the scenery more calmly than when I came with you--I was not so horrified. At the first ranger station, Persimmon Gap, we met Mr. Sholly, the chief ranger and president of the school board. He had not received my letter saying I was coming. He said the school wasn't finished because of trouble getting plumbers and electricians, but that I should go to his house at Panther Junction and make myself at home.

And so I did. Mrs. Sholly is attractive and kind. She is seeing that I meet as many parents and children as possible before school begins Monday the 15th. Last night I had a delicious supper with the Gibbs family in their backyard and watched a lovely sunset. We could see a striped mountain range over in Mexico that changed to all colors and shades as darkness came.

When I returned to the Shollys' they were sitting in their yard, which has a stone wall around it. The night was dark and cool. As we sat talking a beautiful mid-size skunk squeezed under the gate and strolled around our feet and under the table, searching for crumbs. Soon a small skunk came under the gate, and Danny Sholly handed it a piece of bread. Then the queen of them all appeared--a broad, plump skunk that had such a wide white stripe down her back I couldn't see her black sides. She confronted the small skunk and snatched its bread. The small one backed away, dancing and fussing like an angry squirrel. We gave them more bread. They were still in the yard when we went in to bed.

Tonight after supper (we had fried dove) the three came back again. They nosed around our feet intent on finding food and paying no attention to us. Danny collected the dove bones and piled them on a box. The skunks chewed the bones like cats and then came prying about our feet searching for more. They looked so silky I could hardly resist touching one, but George Sholly said that would be dangerous.

This afternoon I went panther hunting with Danny, Betsy Koch, and a man named Joe from Los Angeles who is visiting at Panther Junction. We started out where the Lost Mine Peak sign is in the Basin and climbed part way up Casa Grande to a spring where mountain lions are supposed to lurk. We saw about ten beautiful deer at various times, some with antlers, some without.

I may sound unkind, but I laughed so hard at Joe I nearly fell off the mountain. He is decrepit, can't hear well, and is highly excitable. He was wearing what looked like a British admiral's hat this afternoon and carrying two cameras plus a lighted cigarette. Whenever Betsy, Danny, or I spotted a deer we'd pull his shirt to get his attention. Then he'd stumble around amongst the rocks trying to find the animals in his camera sights. Sometimes, when each of us sighted deer in different places at the same time, he was lunging every which way.

We rested at the spring, then started down the sharp steep trail. Joe went first, and it was as if he stepped on a down escalator--the rocks rolled under him like wheels. He sped away down the mountain, standing on his feet but completely out of control, bumping into trees, boulders, and century plants. From up by the spring I watched wondering how it could end. Betsy and Danny, lower down, stood paralyzed. Finally Joe's feet shot out from under him, and he continued down the mountain on his sit-upon, clutching at the bushes he passed in a cloud of dust. Half the rocks on the mountain rolled with him. I controlled myself as long as I could, but as I groped my way down the trail on all fours, I laughed in a most shameful way.

When the three of us reached Joe, he had picked himself up, collected his cameras, straightened his hat, and lit a new cigarette. We finished the descent with more dignity, still peering right and left for lions. Not a one did we see, but plenty of deer were in evidence.

Joe took us over to concessions and bought us Cokes before we started our return trip to Panther Junction. Joe drives a car the same way he descends mountains--out of control and very fast. As we whizzed along the road, three deer walked in front of the car and stopped to look at us approaching them. Joe was like an octopus as he grabbed for his cigarette, the two cameras, the brakes, and his admiral's hat all at the same time. He leaped out of the car while it was still rolling and tried with first one and then the other camera to make a picture. In his excitement he never could see the deer in the viewfinder. Before we reached Panther Junction we stopped once more, and he did succeed in making a picture of two deer grazing. AK

Excerpt from Tenderfoot Teacher: Letters from the Big Bend, 1952-1954 Copyright © 2002 by Aileen Kilgore Henderson. No portion of this excerpt may be used or reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, Texas Christian University Press.